Have you used the "lift to speak" feature yet? It looks like you are making a phone call, and your conversation remains just between you and Siri.

Not true. Not true in the slightest. You have not explored Siri, but you are placing your opinion out there anyway.

You can ask Siri things like, "What is the least common multiple of 12 and 18?", "What is the greatest common factor of 36 and 45?", "What is 3456.23 times 234?", "Why is the sky blue?", etc. One service that gives you back the answers there is Wolfram Alpha, which is far more than a "glorified web search". Other queries are just as cool and use other services, such as OpenTable. In fact, the only time a web search gets involved is when Siri fails to get a satisfactory answer for you. She is teaching us that to fall back on Google = to fail. What a great way to position the business case!

Thompson

Very well said... Especially where [Google] generalized web search is the avenue of last resort.

Siri will handle all the mundane things (and more) so we can concentrate our expertise and attention on those things requiring human Intelligence.

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

One of Google's top engineers [Amit Singhal] and the world's foremost expert on search engines says his next challenge is to turn Google into everyone's personal assistant, capable of making suggestions and guiding users through their day without them having to lift a finger.

You need far more than a "dollop" of natural language processing to get this right. And you don't make up for that with more robust state memory. Siri has much more than a "dollop", and if Google or Microsoft make the same mistake you are making in their assessment of the difference, then they will be barking up the wrong tree for a very long time.

Well, since Google pretty much swiped the entire concept of a all-display multi-touch phone from Apple, I think it's more than a little disingenuous to get nit-picky about who did what when.

And Apple acquired their notifications manager - they identified a developer that did a good implementation and brought them on to make it native. Like copy and paste, improved notifications and many of the other things noted in that article are no-brainers. I think you see Google "getting there first" because Apple has been focused on getting the core foundational stuff right first, then polishing the extraneous features.

The result is a much more solid, polished and mature feel in iOS vs. Android.

Quote:

Siri is indeed cool, probably the best voice recognition system available for consumers today. But it's not like everyone else has been sitting still, nor that Apple is the only company that can ever do anything right.

I don't think anyone has said that (and if they did, it's just silly).

What Apple does do, and demonstrates time and time again, is that they are fanatically devoted to the details and the user experience, even if they have to leave things out in the short term. They are just about the only company who are not willing to be slaves to blind checklists of features just for the sake of having those features - and I think that is why they are wildly successful when most of their competitors are "flummoxed".

Yup, Android had voice to text for some functions - but it is no where near the level of Apple with Siri. Will Google now update their voice control? No doubt. Will it ever match or surpass Apple? Based on their past performance with other projects I'm not holding my breath.

Quote:

"We want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that's great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and we don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault, it's our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective."
- Steve Jobs

I don't see that in conflict with this discussion. Indeed, Steve's comments re-enforce the irrelevance of many of the themes in this thread. Meaningless indicators like "marketshare" or the addition or missing of a feature here and there. What is important, and what you hear Steve and now others at Apple echo over and over and over is "Apple has to do a really good job." That's the secret sauce. The ultimate "if we build great products, they will come". And so far, they have been consistently and reliably been proven correct as - as the article points out, people are voting with their wallets big time!

Is this exclusive to Apple? It doesn't have to be. But also as I posted earlier, Apple is so good, so polished and so well integrated at this point they make the whole experience thing appear seamless and trivial.

It isn't.

It's why the rest of the industry is struggling. It's why I think HP decided to drop WebOS than try to gear up and take Apple on as an equal (which I still think they could have and am still pissed that they flushed that whole platform away).

Heck, even Amazon who is far closer to Apple with their vertical integration isn't competing the same way with Apple and the iPad - or even the iPhone or iPod.

There are concrete and real reasons for that. Explore those reasons more and you will understand that there is far more to this whole thing than a feature here or a missing feature there.

If Jobs was allowed to downplay his competitors at every turn, his competitors are allowed to do the same.

Job's critiques were usually accurate. These "critiques" are sour grapes. Quite a difference.

Quote:

What are they supposed to do?

Put up or shut up? Not say anything at all? Show a little integrity?

Pretty sad when out and out BS has become socially acceptable "Your phone should be a personal assistant" - seriously? And you don't think that should be ridiculed for the absolutely inane comment it is?

Would you rather have Apple mine your data for the specific, stated, purpose of improving the Siri service...
Or have Google mine your data with the specific purpose of selling your information?
Easy choice, Eh?

No, the easier choice is to read into it whatever he want's to justify his criticism or paranoia

This is the Internet - logic and reason have no place here! Never mind Apple has NOTHING to gain by spying on it's customers, and everything to loose. They have all my data therefore they must be evil!

I could see them sharing it with ad agencies to improve iAd for example.

Sharing what with them, exactly?

Remember this is the company that is still being mercilessly flogged for the 30% subscription thing when the real fly in the ointment for publishers is Apple <gasp> doesn't automatically hand over their customers data and <double gasp> forces them to ask for it.

So, Apple, who is willing to take extreme flack over the whole publisher/30%/privacy thing is just going turn around and with Siri willy-nilly leak personal information about their users either internally or to partners?

Seriously? I can understand a little paranoia, but if Apple hasn't won your trust yet with their repeated practices and actions then I don't know what company on this planet you would feel comfortable trusting!

while Siri is definitely crowd pleasing, it really only does one thing new: maintain more detailed state, allowing it to remember more things about you and use that information to help it respond better. [...] Microsoft, in particular, is in a good position to compete with its TellMe product. All it really needs to do is beef up its command set, add a dollop of natural language processing and a more detailed state machine, and it will be able to compete toe-to-toe with Siri.

Haha = OK, fine - the "just wait and it will be way better than Apple". Where have we heard this before?

Great - we'll see. If it's so easy as you claim, then let's see when MS finally ships it how it compares.

In the meantime Apple is shipping and people are being [/i]productive[/i].

You need far more than a "dollop" of natural language processing to get this right. And you don't make up for that with more robust state memory. Siri has much more than a "dollop", and if Google or Microsoft make the same mistake you are making in their assessment of the difference, then they will be barking up the wrong tree for a very long time.

Thompson

If Siri has "much more than a dollop", I'm not seeing it. Right now, all I'm seeing is a finite set of possible interactions, accessed using a very large vocabulary of commands and sentence structures. The "dollop" of natural language comes in comes in picking up various (but again, finite) keywords used to filter or add precision to the command vocabulary.

The "magic" of Siri isn't in its natural language processing, it's in its huge command vocabulary. That becomes very apparent when you ask a fairly precise question that it should be able to give a precise answer for, but it can't because it doesn't have the right command vocabulary for it.

If Siri has "much more than a dollop", I'm not seeing it. Right now, all I'm seeing is a finite set of possible interactions, accessed using a very large vocabulary of commands and sentence structures. The "dollop" of natural language comes in comes in picking up various (but again, finite) keywords used to filter or add precision to the command vocabulary.

The "magic" of Siri isn't in its natural language processing, it's in its huge command vocabulary. That becomes very apparent when you ask a fairly precise question that it should be able to give a precise answer for, but it can't because it doesn't have the right command vocabulary for it.

I think the size of Siri's command vocabulary is NOT the limitation. It seems to me the current lack is in connection to the additional specialized databases from which Siri can draw data. That's when it fails over to a search of last resort on Google.

For example, the Siri app was connected to OpenTable and could make reservations at restaurants. This current better integrated version does not yet do this.

... The only difference between Google's voice commands/voice control and Siri is the attempted AI, which was actually from an old DARPA project that had its funding cut because it wasn't close to being good enough for military use. ...

You mean, sort of like the Internet? Yeah, that's never going to be useful.

Haha = OK, fine - the "just wait and it will be way better than Apple". Where have we heard this before?

Great - we'll see. If it's so easy as you claim, then let's see when MS finally ships it how it compares.

In the meantime Apple is shipping and people are being [/i]productive[/i].

Today.

Not some hazy time in the future.

Have now or might be. Such a tough choice....

I have news for you: Microsoft is already shipping voice technology in Windows Phone that allows one to be quite productive. Maybe not as productive as Siri, but that's only because Microsoft's product doesn't have all the commands yet.

I have news for you: Microsoft is already shipping voice technology in Windows Phone that allows one to be quite productive. Maybe not as productive as Siri, but that's only because Microsoft's product doesn't have all the commands yet.

TellMe is also very interesting because, as far as we know, Apple hasn't moved into cars yet. Voice tech like TellMe and Siri is very good for people on the move. Even Google is exploring automobiles in interesting ways.

That's what people said about iPhone. And now Android devices outsell iPhones by a considerable margin.

It really amazes me how intellectually dishonest some people can be.

If you're going to compare all Android devices to something, why not all iOS devices? Oh, I get it - because your little game doesn't apply any more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnnDunn

TellMe already has (by my estimation) many millions of users, when you add up everyone who has bought a kinect, a Ford car equipped with Sync or a Windows Phone. All of those products already offer highly robust voice recognition, some natural language processing and fairly robust command sets.

Sorry, but the things a Ford car will do pales in comparison to Siri. You're simply making it clear that you don't have any idea what Siri does.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

Search-based advertising suffers when a Siri-like assistant is used. How do we deal with that ? That's Google's issue.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

Siri is a bigger threat to Google's advertising Empire than iAd will EVER be. The real reason why Google and Microshaft execs are panning Siri is because they knew once Apple acquired Siri that their search engines would be used less.

Lee even uses the nonsensical "Full Internet" people don't want full internet they want the correct answer to their queries without the BS results from SEO.

Siri is a breath of fresh air in a stinky ad/datamining search arena.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

Siri is a bigger threat to Google's advertising Empire than iAd will EVER be. The real reason why Google and Microshaft execs are panning Siri is because they knew once Apple acquired Siri that their search engines would be used less.

Lee even uses the nonsensical "Full Internet" people don't want full internet they want the correct answer to their queries without the BS results from SEO.

Siri is a breath of fresh air in a stinky ad/datamining search arena.

WWSD: Boom!

Soothsayer, soothsayer -- say me some sooths.

...jutht try thaying that if you thpeak with a lithp!

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

I see a lot of folks trying to say Siri isn't ready or Siri isn't much use. I think you're wrong. This really happened in my garage just moments after getting her phone setup:

Wife (a professional musician running late to a gig--as always): Asks me, "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Me: "Just ask your phone"
Wife to Siri: "Where is Blah House in Dallas?"
Siri shows map with push pin.
Wife touches push pin
Phone displays address of Blah House in Dallas
Wife punches address into GPS and screeches out of the driveway.

Folks, give it up. My musician wife is in love with the thing.

whats so special about that. Its even easier to do on android. Just say: "navigate to Blah house in Dallas."

Siri will end up being a novelty for most.. used every once in a while for specific things, just like voice commands for android. If people really wanted a voice controlled digital personal assistant it would have happened on the desktop years ago.

whats so special about that. Its even easier to do on android. Just say: "navigate to Blah house in Dallas."

Siri will end up being a novelty for most.. used every once in a while for specific things, just like voice commands for android. If people really wanted a voice controlled digital personal assistant it would have happened on the desktop years ago.

There's a huge, fundamental difference that's a game changer.

On Andrid you have to tell the phone how do do what you want to do. On Siri, you just tell it what you need and it figures out how to do it. Try telling Android "I lost my keys". See if it figures out you need a locksmith.

Try saying "Do I need a raincoat?" and see if it not only pulls up the weather, but both shows the hour by hour forecast for today and tells you the summary of "Yes, it looks like rain".

It's such a huge, fundamental difference. Instead of thinking like a computer, you can talk like a person and have the phone figure out what it all means.